


Her Incompetent Condensation

by TeamTired



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Body Horror, F/M, First Kiss, Unrequited Kismesissitude
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-05-22
Packaged: 2017-11-05 14:53:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamTired/pseuds/TeamTired
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A behind the scenes / parallel work to Homestuck. Reimagines the Troll Empress not as a diabolical Queen but as a pawn in Lord English's games. The intent is to follow the life of Meenah from her wriggling day all the way until her ruling days on Alpha Earth, with the assumption that her attitude was entirely petulant and impulsive, kept forever young (and immature) by her Life powers (and most importantly her primary source of competence was The Handmaid and Lord English).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Brooding Caverns

A young trolls finds herself at the entrance to the brooding caverns, her trials completed. “about glubbin time…” she whispers to no one in particular. A brief glance behind her confirms what she already knows, that the success of her trials came at the expense of many other trolls, most of whom will never see the surface world. 

“serves t) (em rig) (t for bein so glubbin weak…im t) (e top bitc) ( now”

She strides into the caverns with a swagger that almost surprises the lusii that have taken up residence there. Many of the young trolls she had stepped over to get where she was had yet to complete their pupations, let alone walk with the sort of confidence and dangerous attitude that she possessed. 

One by one, the lusii make their way over to her, each sniffing her cautiously before quickly retreating. Her blood doesn’t smell right to the land-dwelling lusii, she smells of undue ego and petulance, the sort of troll who would be more trouble raising than it would be worth. 

The young troll spies a pool of water and finds herself drawn to it like a moth to a flame. Her gills are dry and uncomfortable; her collapsing and expanding bladder based aquatic vascular system has not yet fully adapted to the rigors of travel out of water, and it seeks the cool respite of the depths. As unsatisfied with the luscii as they are with her, Meenah attempts an elegant dive into the deep pool. 

She fails spectacularly. The result is a painful belly flop that stings both her ego and her front-side. 

Hours later, she still has yet to find a lusus to accept her. Seahorses, whales, and whole schools of fish pass her by, uninterested. As she descends deeper into the pool, she meets even fewer luscii, until she has almost given up hope. 

At the bottom of the pool, the young troll finds an underwater passageway to an even larger underwater pool. Her gills pick up the refreshing taste of seawater, a delight she had never tasted in her brief time as a wiggler and even briefer time as a pupated young troll. She follows the currents to what she finds to be the source of the salt water, an underwater tunnel leading to the ocean. Though it is deeper than the young troll has ever swum, she knows it is where she is destined to go.

As she makes her way to the entrance to the tunnel, she can feel the current pushing against her. She sits still in the water, mustering up the courage to breach her way into the outside world.

Just then, she hears a whisper in her mind, a whisper louder than anything she had ever heard before. She does more than just hear the whisper, it echoes insider her very being, bringing with it a psychic pain that she can feel in every bone in her body. From beneath the blackness of the depths of the pool extends a single tentacle that snakes its way around the young troll until it rests its tip on her forehead. The pain coalesces into a sound, the sound of the first contact between a young troll and her soon to be caretaker. It is in this sound that the young troll would find her name and her identity. 

Meenah.


	2. The Mission

A young troll sits in her almost completed respiteblock, deep beneath the ocean’s surface. It took longer than she would have cared to admit to find enough carpenter droids to build her ambitious design. But the real trial was getting her caretaker to sign off on any given design or location. Meenah swore the old ) (ag was just being difficult on porpoise. After what seemed like sweeps of senseless wandering, Meenah and her caretaker had decided on a spot that was genuinely awful for the two of them; it was far too deep for Meenah to easily reach the surface or hunt for luscii, but it was too close to the surface for Gl'bgolyb to be comfortable. Naturally this made for the perfect passive-aggressive compromise. 

When she wasn’t hunting for luscii to feed her stupid mom’s insatiable appetite or supervising her hive’s construction, Meenah was always on the lookout for some new way to drown our her mom’s brain-busting whispers. What Meenah wouldn’t give for one glubbin night of good sleep.

She floats through her room, looking for a good grub to listen to. She wants something loud and preferably angry, anything to distract her from her glubbin awful life. Just before she plugs the grub in, she feels a current she had never felt before. The water in front of her shifts wildly, making way for something. A blinding flash of green envelops the hive, and in an instant an adult troll stands before Meenah. Her horns are massive and curled, her dress is green and elegant, but torn. A terrifying glow envelops the adult troll, a glow that emanates from wands that she holds in her hands and fills her eyes with a hateful and deadly power. This is a troll with infinite power.

Meenah is filled with fear and indigence, and foolishly decides to act on the latter. 

“W) (AT T ) (---E FUCK DO YOU T) (INK YOUR-E DOIN IN MY GLUBBIN ) (IV----E!”

The adult troll doesn’t seem to register that Meenah has said anything, and instead lifts her wand ever so slightly upwards. Meenah finds herself enveloped in the same energy that seems to animate the monster before her. Not only can she not move, but she finds herself unable to even speak. The adult troll flicks her wand to the right, and Meenah finds herself thrown against the wall of her hive. The adult troll’s wand inches closer to Meenah’s forehead until it is resting on her temple. 

Meenah’s senses begin to dull. Even the psychic noise from her lusus fades until she feels nothing but silence. The offsetting peace is soon broken by a horrid static even more grating and painful than the loudest shrieks of her lusus. She sees flashes, images of things that she somehow knows will eventually happen. Visions of trolls dying gruesome deaths fill her brain, along with one comforting thought, a thought that would grow into an ambition until it defined Meenah’s very identity. 

The Empress. Meenah’s final vision is of a powerful adult troll who rules over all others with an iron first. She senses that this troll possesses enough confidence to bring a race to its knees and oppress a galaxy. Meenah wants that sort of power; she knows that it must be her birthright. 

In an instant, the glowing troll disappears, along with Meenah’s visions. She is left only with a searing psychic pain and the annoying buzz of her lusus, always complaining, always bitc)(ing. 

It is at this point that Meenah realizes two things about herself. The first is that she hates that glowing monster more than anything or anyone she has ever hated before. Meenah is sure that this is the sort of hate that trolls write hatesongs about, the kind of hate that even the strongest kismesissitudes cannot hope to match. The second is that one day; she will become that troll woman in her visions, no matter what the cost. 

“i deserve it all everyfin is mine for t) (e takin, and nobody can stop me”

“id like to see t) (em try to stop me”


	3. The Mariner

A young troll stands at the edge of the shoreline, contemplating her options. Alliances must be made (and often subsequently broken), if she ever hopes to rise to power. She has searched the sea around her home for fellow seadwellers, but they are few and far between, and not even every one of those was interested in an alliance. Though she is disgusted by the idea of asking the land dwellers for help, it seems to be her only option.

She did, however, catch the eye of one violet blooded pirate, a troll only a sweep younger than her. The lonely mariner would soon agree to an alliance, though Meenah would never know if it was out of pity or fear or self interest that the two became allies.

In truth, he was drawn to her incredible beauty and air of mystery. Though Meenah never thought she would tell him the truth about her, her goals, her burdens, her contact with the right hand of Death itself, it was comforting to have a fellow seadweller to talk to, refreshing, like a taste of seawater after a long day on land. 

The young troll makes her way to a group of hives further inland. There she meets trolls of all blood colors, living in harmony. They show her their hives, eager to make a new friend. Meenah is disgusted by these trolls, living together though it is so obvious they should be living apart. Each handshake brings her into contact with another thread of life, pulsing just beneath the surface. She feels pulses she knows will run out only three sweeps from now, while others she can feel beating so confidently they will last another thirty sweeps or more. Do these trolls not realize how different they all are from one another? Trolls of such different circumstances must not live together. 

Meenah preaches to them as she has preached to every troll she has seen before. She tells them she is on a mission to improve Alternia for the better, no matter what the cost. She shows them the vast differences the various trolls share. 

“w) (y s) (ad you all live as equals w) (en it is so obvious t) (at some of you are B-ETT--ER t) (an t) (at?”

She knows few of the “disgusting rustbloods” will be swayed to her way of thinking, but the rustbloods are not who she intends to convert. A few bluebloods or an indigo blood or two is all she needs today, just a few trolls who can ally themselves with her for many sweeps to come. She knows the rustbloods will barely live long enough to make a difference, so why bother hiding her feelings for them? 

Meenah returns to the sea, confidant she made a least a few allies. She is so tired tonight, and her hive deep under the waves seems so far away. The mariner's hive is on the way, and certainly not as deep. She arrives unannounced at the mariner’s hive, nearly dead from exhaustion. The mariner is accommodating and kind. He takes care of her, gives her a place to sleep. For a moment, Meenah feels true pity for the first time in her life. Here is a troll who has given so much of what he has to her, yet he doesn’t even the truth about who she is or what is really going on. While she will live forever, he will eventually die, she knows this from the pulse she feels every time they hug hello. This is a troll who will live so very long, but just like every other troll but her, he will eventually die, his life extinguished. 

They lie together in his hive, saying not a word. Meenah falls asleep to the rise and fall of his collapsing and expanding bladder based aquatic vascular system. Though each pump is another reminder of the Mariner’s mortality, Meenah doesn’t care. 

Hours later, she would startle awake to find herself still in his arms, the two of them having nodded off. She turns to look at the Mariner, who himself has just awoken. She starts to speak:

“i dont know ) (ow to t) (ank you…and i t) (ink i mig) (t…”

But he cuts her off:

“I knoww, I feel the same way.”

She moves even closer to him, and turns her head slightly, but he’s way ahead of her. Their lips lock and she tastes the sea, pure and perfect. The perfect pity they feel for each other is suddenly punctuated by a psychic pain Meenah is all too familiar with. She hears the Mariner shriek in pain. Meenah jerks back, angry and frustrated. Couldn’t the bitch keep it to herself for one day? She looks to the Mariner, who is now bleeding a beautiful violet from his nose. 

“Wwhat the hell wwas that?”

Meenah is embarrassed and ashamed. She knows he couldn’t know that that was her fault, her failure, which caused that psychic shockwave. But she knows her time with him is up, to be resumed some other time. 

Revitalized by her time with the Mariner, Meenah resumes the swim home. On the way, she slaughters a pair of whales with her 2x3dent. It probably won’t be enough to satiate her monster of a mother for the rest of the day, but it should stop another outburst for tonight at least. 

She arrives at her hive and releases the dead whales into her luscus’ gaping maw. She feels a psychic burst of disappointment and anger, along with a small whisper of gratitude. 

“better be fuckin grateful” 

Meenah thinks to herself, knowing her lusus can hear and understands. 

She swims up to her respite block, now emotionally exhausted rather than physically. She lies on her recupercoon, eyes closed. Her brief rest is interrupted by an uneasy feeling, the feeling that the water around her is being pushed away to make room for something that does not belong. An instant later, the Handmaid appears before her, glowing in all her awful glory. Meenah has learned by now not to fight the visions or their caretaker, and simply lies still in the slime and braces herself for the pain that is to come. 

Her head fills with a swarm of images and sounds. First comes the familiar ones, the dead trolls, her lusus, her rightful place as Empress. Next comes new images: the hemospectum, her lusus’ shouts killing lesser-blooded trolls, her rise as a Thief of Life, a violet blooded troll in the arms of a blueblood. 

For the first time, Meenah almost wishes the visions lasted longer. She knows now what she must do to establish her Empire, but she doesn’t care. Her mind remains transfixed on the thought of the violet blooded troll. Her visions had never shown a specific troll before, but here are two. And though the trolls in her vision were adults, there can be no confusion as to the identity of the violet blooded troll. It is the Mariner. As she probes her memories for the vision, there can be no mistaking it; the Mariner will one day wax red for the blue blooded pirate. 

Meenah’s rage begins to burn so hot she ignores the dramatic exit of the Handmaid. Her rage, however, quickly turns to sorrow. It is not her place to question how the visions work; it is her job to make them come true. Regardless of what they show, they are the way things are supposed to be, now and always. If she is not meant to have the Mariner, then that is how things will be. 

She swims out to her lusus again.

“i expect you know exactly w) (at im gonna glubbin find w) (en I swim up t) (ere again, DONT YOU! I WORK-ED SO GLUBBIN ) (ARD TO CONVINC-E T) (-EM, AND YOU KILL---ED T) (-EM”

She doesn’t wait for a response, but she gets one anyway. She can’t make out the exact details, she never can. But the basic message is the same as always: disappointment, frustration, comments about an attitude problem and this being Meenah’s fault, and a conclusion that amounts to accusing Meenah of dressing like a skank.

The next day, after feeding her glutinous lusus yet again, Meenah makes the long trip back to the shore to confirm what she already knows. When she finally looks abovewater, things are somehow even worse than she expected. Rustbloods line the ground, their dirty blood staining everything around them. Even a few greenbloods lie dead in the sand. Further out, Meenah can see a few bluebloods that have not quite recovered from the psychic shockwave, even though it was almost a day ago. 

The villagers do not take kindly to her arrival. They put together the facts: that Meenah had always spoken with disdain for the rustbloods, that Meenah was the only troll they knew that lived in the deep, where wretched creatures live that are capable of such a thing, that Meenah was always one known for having powers greater than those of other trolls. Though every accusation hurts, she knows that it’s all true. Somehow that only makes the accusations worse. Any political power she held here is obviously gone; she’ll have to try again somewhere else. 

As she looks over the devastation that her carelessness caused, she sheds a single fuchsia tear, a colorful drop that quickly loses its distinction in the pools of colored blood that line the streets. She never wanted the lowbloods to die, just to become her subjects. She never held anything against them, she was just doing what she thought was right. 

The worst part of it all was that she knew that this is the way things were meant to be, always and forever. Nothing can change that, no matter how much she hates being trapped like this. 

She travels back to the shore and leaps back into the comfort of the waves. She doesn’t look back, partly because she knows what she’ll see, and partly because she couldn’t take seeing it again. 

That night, Meenah wept herself to sleep in an act of near rebellion. If she couldn’t do things the way she wanted, at least she didn’t have to like doing them.


	4. The Snack

A young adult troll stands at the cusp of her fortress’s balcony, the ruler of all she surveys. It’s been a long time since she wanted for anything. She calls out to a rust-blooded attendant:

“bring me a snack, somefin a little ) (ig) (er on t) (e spectrum a green per) (aps aged only slig) (tly and i t) (ink id like a female tonig) (t”

The rustblood scurries away, off to the guards’ quarters and then to the dungeons. Minutes later, two blue bloods escort a third troll up to Meenah’s quarters. 

“D-> Mistress, shall we display this one’s b100d to you”

“no need boys im sure s) (es just w) (at i need”

“you may wait outside but dont stop ) (er if s) (e escapes”

“i wouldnt mind a c) (ase tonig) (t”

The bloodbloods take their leave and Meenah turns from the view over her balcony to eye her newest victim. She’s an adult troll, only a sweep or so older than Meenah. She isn’t restrained, but doesn’t dare move. Meenah loves this part of the game, the part where the victim doesn’t yet know the rules, where the victim still thinks if they behave and sit as quiet as they can, they can still escape. This is the part where there’s still a glimmer of hope behind those sad eyes. 

They always taste a little better before they’ve gone sour with despair. 

She steps a little closer to the kneeling troll and places her hand on the victim’s throat. It takes her only a moment to feel the life pulsing just beneath the skin. She’s a limeblood, though a particularly sickly one, perfect for culling. She probably had a few sweeps left in her regardless.

But that’s the nice thing about being a thief; you appreciate the nice things trolls have even more when they’re yours. 

She only needs a moment to focus her energies, and in flash of green light, the troll before her is reduced to a brilliant lime dust. She feels stronger than she’s ever felt before. 

Meenah loves the feeling of adding a few sweeps to her life. No matter how many sweeps she takes, it always feels better to add a few more.   
She reminds herself to have the rustblood clean up the lime dust; the royal artists could always use a little bit more green pigments. 

She walks down to the base of her fortress and into the war room, where she begins to plan this week’s troop patrols, free of distractions. She almost misses the times when she knew exactly what to do, when her decisions were handed down to her from on high. Thankfully, other than a few small hiccups in the earlier part of her reign, she’s never had any problems suppressing her little corner of Alternia.

A brief glance over recent intel reveals a few small peasant uprisings, which is certainly nothing to worry about, but a report from an Eastern threshecutioner squad catches her eye. Though they killed the psionics that were uprising with no problems, the lead scout reported seeing a “demoness” that killed half the squad before they were able to wound her, at which point she disappeared. 

“great now s) (es not just content ruining my life s) (es gotta glubbin RUIN MY MILITARY TOO”

Just the thought of that bitch makes Meenah’s skin crawl with a hate so pure it’s indecent. A twinge of psychic energy reminds her that the other bitch in her life is hungry. Thankfully, long gone are the days when Meenah would have to feed her monster of a caretaker by herself. These days, any one of her thousands of followers would gladly sacrifice even their own lusus if it meant avoiding the death by life-steal that she promised to her enemies. She reminds herself to order a feeding within the hour.

Caught up in her own thoughts, she doesn’t even notice the appearance of the Handmaid, who pops into space just behind her. As Meenah turns to walk out, she almost bumps into the Handmaid, whose wand is already raised. 

“o) ( t) (is is glubbin fantastic, if it isnt my favorite glubbin TROLL IN T) (---E GLUBBIN WORLD”

“) (ow ) (ave you been up to anyfin in particular, like SLAUG) (T-ERING MY M------EN”

A quick glance at the Handmaid reveals that she’s unharmed. Meenah pauses for a minute and thinks, before letting out a huge laugh. No, of course the glubbin demoness wouldn’t be harmed, even though the report said she would be bleeding. She’s the glubbin right hand of death, unstoppable in every way.

That doesn’t stop Meenah from putting up a fight. 

She gets as far as drawing her 2x3dent and leaping into the air before the Handmaid freezes her and throws her violently against the wall. It’s been longer than Meenah can remember since she’s been roughed up like this. It’d almost be foreplay if she didn’t know who she was dealing with. One Meenah knows that there’s no escape, she relaxes her muscles and braces herself for the oncoming pain. 

Silent and emotionless, the Handmaid places her glowing wand on Meenah’s temple. The familiar agony floods through her mind, exposing her to a pain even more intense than every torturous visit of the Handmaid combined. Her mind floods with new visions of what is to come and what she is required to do. 

She sees her kingdom grow and her influence spread. She sees the victory of her armies and the slaughter of her enemies. She feels the surge of dominance, but she also feels a pang of loneliness. 

The Handmaid releases Meenah, and she slumps to the floor, defeated. She looks up at the Handmaid and whispers: 

“w) (y…w ) (y do you keep doing t) (is to me…w) (o are you…really”

But the Handmaid simply turns away and blinks out of existence, leaving Meenah alone again. 

She doesn’t move from that spot on the floor for hours. 

Eventually, she musters the strength to pull herself up and make the long walk back up to her quarters. Her brain wracked with the psychic pain of her lusus’ constant cries for food and the dull agony of the visions, she barely has enough mental strength to even move her limbs. Somehow, she makes it, and slumps into her recuperacoon. The cooling slime makes her feel at peace, as though she’s underwater again, and soon the sopor in the slime is enough to dull away her psychic pains to just above a whisper, quiet enough for her to get some sleep. 

“for all t) (e lands and powers i clam, it never gets any easier does it”

“and it never gets any less lonely”

And with those thoughts, the young troll falls asleep.


	5. The Battles

An adult troll dashes across the battlefield, her 2x3dent expertly wielded. Fueled with a thousand sweeps of stolen youth, she moves lightening quick, striking with a carefully trained precision. Swift jabs at her left and right spill a rainbow of blue and green blood, dropping her enemies to the ground. She moves forward to the last troll standing, a fellow fuchsia blood and her last major competition. 

The pretender challenges her to a duel, but Meenah is too wise to accept. Though Meenah’s power and infinite youth has kept her strong and quick, the troll before her boasts at least a thousand sweeps more experience. A signal to a hidden squad of E%ecutors sends a flurry of arrows towards Meenah’s prey. She laughs as her rival drops to her knees. The fuchsia blood stains the battlefield and Meenah’s shoes as she steps forward to claim her prize. 

“o) ( i do love it w) (en t) (ey KN-E-----EL”

“you put up a good fig) (t”

“but ill take w) (ats mine now”

She places her hands on her victim’s head and concentrates for the moment it takes for her to channel her power. In that instant, she can feel the strong pulse of the aged soul before her. This fellow seadweller could have lived another thousand sweeps at least, despite her extreme age. 

The resulting flash of green light reduces Meenah’s victim to a brilliant fuchsia dust, and Meenah feels a massive surge of life energy, enough to keep her alive for longer than she could even imagine. 

She reminds herself to make something cute from the dust, something to remember this all by. 

And now, with no troll rivaling her power or longevity, Meenah can rule it all easily. 

She is now indisputably the most powerful troll in the world. 

She takes a moment to soak it all in, and laughs.

Satisfied with her victory, Meenah summons a fleet of Cavalreapers. She orders the remains of the enemy’s army fed to the Imperial Lusus Herds, and the pigmented dust of her rival delivered to her personal quarters. 

Though she has much to do before her Empire is secure, she feels as though she’s earned herself a break. After making sure the battlefield has been cleared, she orders her Imperial Guards away and walks to the nearby shore. 

She dives in, and the salty water soon overwhelms her gills. She hasn’t felt this free in sweeps, despite ruling most of the planet. She loses herself under the waves, letting the currents take deep into the heart of the ocean. She’s not sure if it was her subconscious, the currents of the deep, or some ironic twist of fate, but she finds herself at her old hive. It’s been years since she’s been down here, thanks to nicer accommodations both above and below the waves, as well as a fleet of ninjaquatics and pirates who are more than willing to help feed her old lusus to prevent the death of every troll on the planet. 

Her daydream broken, she can feel the psychic tether of her lusus stronger than she ever has before. 

She thinks out loud, well aware that the monster beneath her can hear both her words and her thoughts. 

“o) ( of course i didnt forget about you bitc) ( of t) (e waves ) (erself”

“failing as always to keep care of your glubbin self i see”

“and dont bot) (er tellin me youre ) (ungry”

“im in a good mood so ill order an extra feedin or two just for you”

She thinks back to the other fuchsia blooded troll. How could such a powerful being exist so long without Meenah’s knowledge? And what of the other lusus, if there is one? If another of T) (IS sort existed, how wouldn’t Meenah have felt the psychic waves by now? 

She decides that this monster must have raised her rival as well.

“so w) (y didnt you tell me you ) (ad anot) (er daug) (ter”

“or anyfin for t) (at matter”

“emissary of t) (e ) (orrorterrors my glubbin ass”

What Meenah does not realize is that she was never meant to receive the gift of communication with the beings beyond the Veil. 

At least not in this reality.

Instead, corrupted by the influence of the Demoness, Meenah has forged a different path, leading to a ruined reality, filled with bloodshed and hatred. 

And she loves every minute of it. 

At least, that’s what she tells herself to keep the nightmares away at night. She tells herself that this is her doing, that she’s destined for a life of power and prestige, but even she knows she’s lying to herself. 

She knows that her gifts are all that keeps her from being just another troll, and that every gift has a price. 

She feels the displacement of the water in front of her, and just as the Handmaid flashes into existence, a cloud of dark red blood fills the water around Meenah, insulting her frontal nasal cavity. 

Meenah almost flashes a toothy smile at the thought of engaging her old nemesis like this, in this place, at this time. At the height of her empire, it is only proper that she would be confronted yet again by the source of her greatest triumphs and deepest pains. 

“w) (oa looks like youre bleedin a little t) (ere”

“serves you rig) (t you glubbin gutterblooded bitc) (“

“and by t) (e way of course youd be a lowblood”

“glubbin ironic t) (at s) (it is”

She considers for a moment fighting back, that maybe in her weakened state the Handmaid would make enough mistakes for Meenah to take her down.

But then she realizes that it wouldn’t matter either way. Meenah knows that her collapsing and expanding bladder based aquatic vascular system waxes blacker for the Demoness than she’s ever waxed for anyone else. 

But she knows her feelings can’t be reciprocated, that the things she feels are born from frustration and pain, and not true hate. 

It doesn’t make the psychic pain or the pain of rejection and loneliness hurt any less. 

“so w) (at ) (ave you come to do now”

“w) (at is it t) (at t) (e lovely D-EMON----ESS D-EMANDS NOW OF ) (ER MOST LOYAL S-EVANT”

The Handmaid reaches her wand out and taps it to Meenah’s head. Meenah knows that talking any more will only result in a gag and worse pain, and for once she doesn’t feel like hurting any more than she is now. 

So she stands perfectly still as the psychic visions wash over her, drowning her in a familiar fiery agony. 

She sees herself, standing over her kingdom, ruling the entire planet. She sees the rise of another, a mutant blooded troll who seeks to destroy all that she has made. She sees his followers crushed under her military might, and his name and symbols stricken from the imperial records. She knows that she must do whatever is asked of her to keep her power. 

It is the way things are meant to be.   
The Handmaid retracts her wand and disappears, leaving Meenah alone with nothing but her lusus and the faint odor of deep red blood for company. 

As her lusus stirs deep beneath her, Meenah shouts:

“dont glubbin try anyfin”

“not tonig) (t im not in t) (e mood”

She can’t fit into her old recuperacoon, but she’s too tired to make it to any of her bases, and she can’t risk a follower seeing her, not like this. 

So she just lets herself float in her old respiteblock, confident that the nightmares that will plague her are nothing compared to the cold reality of her life. 

She’s right.


	6. The Prisoner

An adult troll lays on the ground of a secured cell, his arms tightly shackled to the wall behind him. His daily beatings have left him weak and sore, but he clings to life, perhaps out of spite more than anything. They tell him that if he would only sign a confession admitting to his crimes against the Empire, they will give him a clean, painful death. 

But he has no interest in dying. Every moment he lives is another moment of victory and encouragement for the followers he left behind, and a personal “fuck you” to the self proclaimed empress. 

His cell door swings open, bringing in what he doesn’t doubt is some new torment. 

He is pulled to a kneeling position by two strong arms.

“The 100db100d will kneel before his MIGHTY empress”

He hears her speak as she enters his cell.

“done causing trouble for us yet”

“because if im bein quite ) (onest im sick of t) (is mess”

“you know everyone was ) (appy before you came along and tried to ruin it”

He hears something in her voice that reminds him of a friend long gone. He whispers to no one in particular:

“Meenah…”  
That gets more of a reaction than he expected from her.

“W) (AT DID YOU SAY”

She orders the blueblood out and he looks up at her. Behind all the pomp and haughtiness, he sees the face of his friend. Beneath the hardness and the sorrow of her voice, he hears the fear and rebelliousness of a troll girl he once knew. 

“You heard me right Meenah.”

“YOU WILL R-E-EF----ER TO M-E AS ) (-ER –EMP-ER-----ESS”

“No, I don’t think I will. I’ve defied your rule this long, and I don’t feel like stopping now.”

In a fit of rage, Meenah extends her arm and places her hand on his head, gathering her energies. 

In split second before she wills her power forth, however, she feels something wrong in his life-force. Though she feels his mighty life surge forth, she can’t place his blood color. The more she concentrates, the more his life fights back, his very blood seemingly pushing her influence away. 

She recoils, her face betraying her confusion and fear. 

“Oh, hasn’t anyone told you?”

“Or did you just not believe the news.”

“I oppose your hemospectrum for more than just the cruelty and death it’s caused.”

“I oppose it because I’m not on it.”

Meenah recovers and looks down on him/

“w) (at are you”

“I’m the anomaly the system forgot. I’m the glitch that the Handmaid couldn’t purge, or didn’t want to. I’m a mutation Meenah.”

“stop calling me t) (at”

“Why should I? That’s your name, I know it is. We worked together once before Meenah, but I’m sure you don’t remember. They never seem to remember.”

“w) (at t) (e ) (-ELL are you talking about”

“start making sense before i kill you RIG) (T ) (-ER----E”

“I don’t think you will do that, because I don’t think you can, at least not until you find out the truth. That’s how my Meenah was, stubborn till the end.”

She almost opens her mouth to protest again, but she finds herself transfixed by his words, unable to do anything but listen.

“Have you ever had the sense that things aren’t the way they should be? That somewhere, somehow, things went wrong?”

She doesn’t say anything, but a look on her face betrays the truth, that she knows exactly what he’s talking about.

“Well I’ve been all around this thrice damned planet, and I’ve seen my species turned into a disgusting parody of what I know to be our true nature.”

“And every time the source of the violence and the hate is you Meenah, did you know that?”

“Of course you did.”

“So I’ve been spreading a message against you, against your whole system of hate. I’ve spread a message of love and tolerance, of rebellion.”

She tries to open her mouth to protest, to tell him that it wasn’t her fault; it wasn’t her choice, not really. 

That she’s just a girl doing what she’s meant to do. 

“But it wasn’t enough, and it never will be. Do you know why? Of course you do. Because you aren’t the real head of all of this, are you?”

“You’re a pawn just like the rest of them, pushed around by some higher power.”

Suddenly, she snaps out of the trance he’s put her into. Indignant, she strikes him, knocking him to the ground. He lies still for a moment before pulling himself back up, his head bleeding a terrifying bright red. 

“Oh, you didn’t like that did you? And I bet I know why, because you know it’s TRUE!”

“BECAUSE YOU KNOW YOU’RE JUST AS HELPLESS AS I AM.”

“BECAUSE YOU KNOW THAT ALL OF THIS IS BEYOND OUR CONTROL.”

“That was the worst part, you know that? The worst part of all of this was how pointless it was. For ever troll I turned to peace, you turned a thousand to war. And when I finally meet her Imperial Condescension herself, she’s a SCARED LITTLE GIRL!”

“I’ve given up Meenah, you win. Execute me or leave me here to starve, it won’t make a difference. I’ve realized that I’m an error, a candy-blooded nobody not meant to exist in this reality. I’m destined to die, rejected by my own universe.”

Meenah can’t take it anymore. She no longer feels indignation or rage or even sadness. 

Instead, her collapsing and expanding bladder based aquatic vascular system overflows with helplessness. 

“im so sorry”

“im so sorry it ended up t) (is way”

“i didnt ) (ave a c) (oice”

She drops to the ground, her fuchsia tears mixing with his candy red blood. 

He looks upon her with pity. Not romantic pity, but pure selfless pity, the pity of a savior.

“I know you didn’t. None of us did.” 

She throws her arms around him, sobbing uncontrollably.

“But you must kill me.” 

“I am a tumor on this universe, and one way or another, my existence will doom us all.”

“This is the way things must be.”

She whispers back to him.

“t) (is is t) (e way t) (ings must be”

An eternity later, Meenah stands up and walks out of the cell, not even bothering to check if the door locks behind her. 

Unable to bring herself to order his death, Meenah would eventually leave the fate of the candy blooded troll to the hands of the theocracy to the Grand Highbloods, who decreed that he be clamped in burning irons and executed via firing squad. 

At 3 pm the next day, just as the sun began to rise over the horizon, the Sufferer was put to death. The echoes of his Last Sermon would haunt Meenah for sweeps after. Though many of the trolls listening found great meaning and purpose in his last obscenities, only Meenah truly understood what he was felling. Only she could understand the frustration and terror of living in a world that at its very core is wrong. Only she could feel the same perfect hopelessness that he did. He was the only one with whom she could share her secrets, and he was put to death for recognizing how corrupted Meenah had made the world. 

But of course Meenah knows that it cannot have happened any other way. It is not her place to change the course of time; she must only fulfill the steps that have been set out for her. 

Naturally, the Sufferer’s revolt did not end with his death. Meenah orders history rewritten to eliminate all mentions of him, from his life to his death, including the sym69ls that his cult adopted in his aftermath.

She knows that his death must not be in vain. He wanted to be removed from the world to which he did not belong, and unless she removes every trace of his existence, both of them will have failed. 

Ultimately, however, the purging of the history of the Sufferer was as much a way of consolidating her Empire’s strength as it is a way of hiding her own guilt and shame.


	7. The Skirmish

An adult troll takes flight, carried on strong broad wings. Below him rest his armies of beasts and trolls, preparing for the next morning’s combat. Though he wants nothing more to spend time in the woods, calling out to the luscii and resting his own weary spirit, he knows that his men need his support now more than ever. He swoops down to a nearby tent post and calls out in a broad voice:

“aTTENTION EVERYONE, UMM, i THINK YOU SHOULD PAY ATTENTION,”

“i KNOW THAT THESE DAYS HAVE BEEN TOUGH FOR EVERYONE,”

“bUT i BELIEVE THAT WHAT WE ARE DOING IS GOOD,”

He pauses for a minute. Regretfully his confidence in battle has not transferred to confidence in public speaking. He leaps into the air, propelled by his wings, until he can see all of his armies in their entirety.

“wE ARE THE REVOLUTION, AND i AM YOUR sUMMONER,”

He raises his fist directly above his head in solidarity, and his followers follow suit. The air becomes thick with the calls and warcries of trolls and luscii alike. 

“rEST UP FELLOW TROLLS, FOR TOMORROW WE STRIKE AT THE EMPRESS’S HEART”

As the cheers of his armies die down, he takes flight again and makes his way to his tent at the center of the camp. Though the tent is large and certainly comfortable, most of the space is taken up by his prized possession and companion, Pyralspite. 

The Summoner concentrates for a moment and communicates with his partner in revolution. 

“wE DID WELL TODAY MY FRIEND”

“sOON, WE WILL LIBERATE ALL OF ALTERNIA”

The dragon lifts her sleepy head and communicates back to him, her own psychic powers complementing and melding with his own.

“Y3S 1ND33D SUMMON3R, BUT DO NOT GROW OV3R CONF1D4NT”

“TH3 WORST 1S Y3T TO COM3 > : ( ”

The Summoner hangs his head, almost in premature defeat. 

“yOU ALWAYS SAY THAT pYRALSPITE”

“nO MATTER HOW WELL WE DO, YOUR PREDICTIONS NEVER CHANGE”

“iS THERE NOTHING THAT CAN BE DONE”

The dragon shakes her head ever so slightly. 

“1 DO NOT KNOW WHY YOU CONT1NU3 TO QU3ST1ON MY V1S1ONS”

“YOU KNOW TH4T 1 WH4T 1 H4V3 S33N 1S D3F1N4T3”

He allows his mind to wander through the past, through his victories and defeats, to a great love, long lost. 

“dO YOU STILL MISS HER pYRALSPITE”

“3V3RY D4Y”

“wHAT ABOUT mINDFANG, DO YOU THINK WE DID THE RIGHT THING, KILLING HER”

“YOU’R3 NOT GO1NG TO H34R 4 DIFF3R3NT 4NSW3R”  
“i NEED TO HEAR IT FROM YOU, AGAIN”

“1 KNOW TH4T SH3 TOOK A GR3AT D3AL FROM M3, 1 KNOW TH4T SH3 WOULD H4V3 K1LL3D YOU, 4ND 1 KNOW TH4T YOU D1DN’T H4VE 4 CHO1C3”

“B3C4US3 TH1S 1S TH3 W4Y TH1NGS MUST B3”

The Summoner lies down on the cold ground. Though most his troops have portable recuperacoons, the Summoner’s horns and wings are far too large for any conventional bedding. He trusts that something else will keep the nightmares at bay. 

“pYRALSPITE, i TRUST YOU WILL PROTECT ME AGAIN TONIGHT”

The dragon subtly nods.

“OF COURS3, L1K3 4LW4YS” 

The Summoner drifts off to sleep despite the hard cold ground beneath his head.

He awakens suddenly to the voice of Pryalsprite in his mind.

“SUMMON3R, YOU 4R3 N33D3D”

“TH3Y’R3 H3R3”

A swift check outside reveals that the sun is just setting behind the hills of Alternia. 

“yOU’RE NEVER WRONG, ARE YOU pYRALSPITE”

“C3RT41NLY NOT S1R”

“4T L34ST NOT WH3N 1T COM3S TO M4TT3RS OF TH3 M1ND”

The Summoner soars out of the tent with Pyralspite directly behind him. Though the harsh rays of the setting sun sting, it’s certainly not enough to stop him, or his enemy. 

From the skies, the Summoner and Pyralspite direct the battle, communicating with each other and the lusii of the Summoner’s army through their psychic link. The waves of the Summoner’s Cavalreapers crash against the deadly physical might of the Empress’s highblooded troops. What the lowbloods lack in brawn they make up in numbers and psychic abilities. 

He directs his reapers carefully and deliberately, as if they were pieces on a gameboard. He knows that not all of them will make it through the battle alive; it is the hope that he has done the best that he can that keeps him fighting. 

When the battle clears, the Summoner descends to tend to his troops. The ground is stained brown and red, but the Summoner almost does not notice. He has come far too far to start regretting his revolution now. 

He takes a headcount via his lusus commanders and checks in with what remains of his cavalreapers. The battle has taken a serious toll on the already tattered group that makes up the revolution, but Summoner knows that some losses are necessary. 

“pYRALSPITE, HOW DID WE DO”

“FROM TH3 1NFORM4T1ON 1 H4V3 4V41L4BL3, 1T S33MS TH3 B4TTL3 H4S GON3 1N OUR F4VOR”

“lOTTA DEAD TROLLS OUT THERE, LUSII TOO,”

“tELL ME WE GOT THE JOB DONE”

“TH4T W3 D1D SUMMON3R”

“H3R M4J3STY W1LL H4V3 NO CHO1C3 BUT TO D34L W1TH US D1R3CTLY”

The Summoner orders his armies onwards, to the Empress’s fortress.


	8. The Confrontation

Two trolls stand face to face, the Empress at her balcony, the Summoner floating in front of her. The road to this point has been paved with the blood of lowbloods and highblood alike. The Summoner has called a parlay, and though it is not in Meenah’s nature to make peace, a painfully insistent visit by the Handmaid has forced her hand. 

The Summoner stares into the fuchsia eyes of the Empress and sees a soul that is at once older than he will ever know and younger even than him. He speaks confidently to her.

“yOUR ARMIES ARE DEFEATED AND WE LAY SIEGE ON YOUR VERY FORTRESS, GIVE UP AND SUCCUMB TO THE REVOLUTION”

Meenah stares back into the Summoner’s deep brown eyes.

“w) (at makes you t) (ink ill give up”

“w) (at makes you t) (ink you can win”

“t) (at you can best ) (--ER IMP---ERIAL COND-ESC-ENSION”’

“you glubbin know ill ) (ave a fleet of bluebloods ) (ere to make you murder yourselves in t) (e ) (our”

“and worst case ill just order my B---EAST B---ELOW to silence your entire glubbin caste”

“all t) (e rustbloods in one go”

“is t) (at w) (at you want”

The Summoner smiles and floats a little closer so that he can whisper into her ear.

“i KNOW YOU’RE BLUFFING YOUR HIGHNESS”

“i KNOW YOUR SECRETS, OR AT LEAST ENOUGH OF THEM TO TAKE YOU DOWN”

“nOW i COULD ORDER MY ARMIES TO TEAR THIS NICE FORTRESS YOU’VE BUILT APART, AND ORDER MY DRAGON TO BURN EVERYTHING AROUND HERE,”

“bUT i AM A MAN OF PEACE AT HEART, SO i’LL GIVE YOU A CHANCE TO TALK IT OVER WITH ME,”

“iF YOU CALL OFF THE BLUEBLOODS”

Meenah isn’t sure if the Summoner is telling the truth, or if he’ll follow through on his threats, but she can’t risk it. If she lets him destroy everything, she risks another revolution, and maybe this time it will be a revolution of more than a few rustbloods. 

She signals to the defenders of the fortress to drop their weaponry and orders her blue blooded psychics to stand down. 

The Summoner is escorted in by two highblood guards. Meenah holds her audience with him in one of her inner chambers, far from any windows or balconies. 

She offers him a seat but he doesn’t take it. She doesn’t sit either. Though she stands slightly taller than him and her hair certainly takes up more space than him, she feels slightly intimidated by his broad wings, which give him an unearthly quality. 

“so speak summoner tell me your grand secret or i mig) (t just take you now”

“i can do t) (at you know reduce you to dust take your life just like t) (at”

The Summoner gives another knowing laugh. She realizes that the Summoner really does hold the upper hand here, a fact that she’s not happy to admit.   
The Summoner sees his advantage and takes it. 

“i’VE GOT YOU STUMPED, DON’T i,”

“wELL, LET ME GIVE YOU A HINT, gL’BGOLYB SAYS ‘HI’,”

Meenah tries to restrain herself, but she lets a small gasp go.

“bECAUSE i KNOW YOUR SECRET EMPRESS,”

“yOU AND THE BIG LADY AREN’T ON SUCH GREAT TERMS ANYMORE, ARE YOU,”

“sHE’S HUNGRIER THAN EVER, BUT i’M SURE YOU KNOW THAT”

The Summoner has gone too far this time. She rushes forwards and wraps her hand around his throat. 

What she feels underneath is the fragile life and quickened beat of a brown-blood. For how grand he appears, for all the great armies he commands and the mental power he controls, his life force seems laughably weak. Meenah knows if she does nothing but wait, she could have him dead from old age in only another ten sweeps or so. 

And yet in such a short time, he has done so much. 

She relaxes her grip ever so slightly and feels the Summoner take in a deep breath. There is something primal in that breath, something deep and dangerous. As he exhales, she can feel the rhythm of his lungs in her self, almost overwhelming her. She tries to keep her hand on his neck, but she just can’t do it. She freezes in place, almost entirely helpless, standing in awe of his power. 

“cHANGED YOUR MIND i SEE, VERY GLAD THAT THAT’S THE CASE, WORKS OUT BETTER FOR THE BOTH OF US i THINK”

Neither of them moves for a moment, until the Summoner reaches out his own hand and places it gently on Meenah’s neck, just below her gills. His hands feel rough and confident against her moist and smooth skin. 

He the throb of her collapsing and expanding bladder based aquatic vascular system and the rush of air between her gills as she begins to breathe heavier. In her breath he feels a conflicting cocktail of emotions: the pride of an empress paired with the helplessness of a little girl, the condescension of a ruler paired with the wonder of a child. She is at once scared and determined, angry and sad. 

But above all, in her breath he feels loneliness, an overwhelming crippling loneliness that seems to almost define her. This is the loneliness of a troll that has lived alone without another for so long she has forgotten what it is to be pitied. 

In that instant, the Summoner feels a pity for her so deep it rivals the pity he felt for Mindfang herself. Though no troll could make him feel the way that she did, the Empress’s perfect loneliness comes dangerously close. 

He looks into her eyes and sees that she feels a similar pity for him. Without even thinking he lowers his hand to her waist and pulls her closer. She doesn’t even consider resisting. Instead, she draws her lips to his and kisses him with a passion she had only ever felt once before. 

In his lips she feels a life that continues in spite of its quickly expiring time. 

In her breath he feels the wisdom of the ages paired with the virility of youth. 

In an instant they pity one another so strongly that nothing else seems to matter. 

No words are necessary. Though she is countless sweeps his senior, he takes the lead. Still in each other’s embrace, they move about the room, lost in the passion they’ve found in one another. 

She pushes him up against one of the walls of the room and removes his tunic. Even his chest is worn and muscular. She traces her symbol across him, feeling the firmness of his body against her touch. He kisses her again, firmly now, and even more confidently than before. She kisses back, caught up in her pity for him.

They drop to the floor, still wrapped in each other’s arms. A fumbling Summoner helps Meenah out of her body suit, and she pulls off his pantaloons. He’s more aware of himself now, and more embarrassed of his massive horns. For a moment he’s afraid of hitting her with them, or knocking something over. They lay on the floor, fully exposed to one another, brown-tinted flesh to fuchsia tinted flesh. Meenah climbs on top of him, eager to experience the perfect pity of filling a bucket. 

Still none of them say anything, be it from embarrassment or out of an unwillingness to break the spell that has led them to this point. They forgo the formality of looking for a bucket, both out of an unwillingness to stop what they’re doing and out of the unavailability of such a scandalous item in the Empress’s private chambers. They lock their bodies in the final passionate embrace of trolls in a matespritship.

Just as they finish, an Imperial Drone appears to collect the genetic material. Meenah winces at the thought of her subjects realizing that even ) (-ER IMP-ERIAL COND--ESCENSION must fill a bucket once in her lifetime, and winces again when she realizes that out of the all of Alternia, she has filled a bucket with a rustblood, and worst of all the leader of the rebellion.   
Perhaps even worse is the knowledge that one day a successor may rise from this genetic material. 

Spent physically and emotionally, Meenah and the Summoner barely drag themselves to a nearby vat of supor slime, kept in the corner of the chamber. They fall unconscious in the embrace of the calming slime and each other.

With her last conscious thought, Meenah is grateful that the Imperial Drones are at least discrete; she will not have to fear any subjects discovering the deed she has committed.


	9. The Flagship

When Meenah awakes, she is alone in her vat of supor slime. Her excursion the day before, while disgusting in every sense of the word, left her fulfilled in ways she couldn’t have hoped to imagine before. 

A split second later, she realizes that her quarry has escape. At best, a rustblood with state secrets is wandering the halls of the Imperial Palace. Meenah doesn’t even want to imagine the worst case scenario, especially since it ends with the collapse of her rule and the destruction of the planet as she knows it. She has to find him, and soon. 

A brief state of panic sets in. A split second later, she calms herself down and considers her options. His massive horns would have kept him from most the service tunnels and maintenance shafts, and his obvious nature as the enemy commander would have kept him away from populated hallways. 

She takes a momentary inventory of the hallways he could have traversed and decides on the special projects wing of the fortress. If his parlay did have an ulterior motive, he would probably be most interested in the secrets stored there. Plus, only Meenah and a select few dare travel down to the special projects wing, so he ran a much lower chance of being caught down there. 

She walks to the nearest staircase leading downwards and takes the spiral path deep past the basement floors. As she nears the dark, damp bottom of the fortress, she notices gouge marks on the walls, no doubt from the Summoner’s unwieldy horns. She passes by an industrial metal door, its lock pried open. She reminds herself to get better locks and walks into the special projects wing. 

Since the dawn of her reign, Meenah had become dedicated to harnessing the innate powers of trolls, for one purpose or another. Naturally, every troll has the potential to contribute their life force to the glorious reign of the empress, but that wasn’t enough for Meenah. She coveted the psychic powers of the lowbloods for her own, and if she couldn’t use them herself, at the very least she could try to force the lowbloods themselves to work for her. 

First came the attempts to transfer the powers to her mind directly, at the expense of the powered lowbloods. Most of these attempts did nothing more than reduce the victims to colored dust, without even a transfer of life force. A few managed to give her a headache, but nothing more. Next came the attempts to somehow bottle the psychic energy of the lowbloods, as a sort of energy source. The best of those experiments resulted in a dead troll and a waste of time, the worst of them resulted in explosions of psychic energy that killed the scientists in Meenah’s labs, and in one particularly unfortunate case, resulted in having to rebuild the entire lab from scratch. 

But the one experiment that time and again brought favorable results was the harvesting of the psychic energy of lowbloods while they stayed alive. Meenah’s power could keep a power source alive for as long as she liked, and the lowbloods could provide her empire with unlimited power. 

She walks to the end of the hallway and through a set of double doors into the grand warehouse of the special projects wing. Before her is her proudest accomplishment, the flagship of what is soon to be an imperial fleet of space ships. 

The most recent visions curtsey of the Handmaid all dealt with this ship and its flight. Meenah knows that this will be the last step for her species, the final move to a perfect, unbreakable empire. 

She notices more horn marks at the doorway to the warehouse and uses a nearby emergency button to request guards to her location. She’s confident that by the time the guards reach her location she will have extracted the information she was looking for from the Summoner and subdued him with ease. If she can’t kill him herself, she’s sure she can arrange something for the traitor. Something painful she hopes. 

She walks into the warehouse and up the entrance ramp of the ship. As she steps onto the ship, she can feel the gentle hum of energy channeled throughout the ship, keeping it powered and ready for takeoff at a moment’s notice. She makes her way into the deep belly of the helm, where she keeps her ship’s engine. 

There, against the blue and red flashing backdrop of the engine room, she finds him, transfixed at the sight before him. 

He turns to her, brown tears dripping from his face. He doesn’t understand what he’s seen. He knows only enough to be scared, paralyzed out of horror. His turning reveals the pilot and energy source of Her Majesty’s Flagship, the Helmsman. 

He speaks to her, his confident voice reduced to a whisper.

“iS THAT...HIM”

“tHE Ψiioniic”

“wHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM”

Meenah laughs a bitter laugh.

“we made ) (im better summoner”

“) (e isnt just t) (e Ψiioniic anymore ) (es t) (e ) (elmsman of t) (e best damn s) (ip weve got”

“ive given ) (im t) (e gift of usefulness and t) (e gift of eternal life”

“t) (ats a pleasure youll never know”

The Summoner turns again to the source of the blue and red glow. He sees a fellow troll, twisted and deformed, his mouth turned into a permanent scream, his eyes held open in an eternal outward stare of alternating blue and red. Purple tendrils from all across the room twist their way over and around the husk that Ψiioniic once was. He has become one with the ship.

Overwhelmed by the abomination before him, the Summoner collapses on the ground, defeated. 

Meenah glares at the defeated trolls before her, one newly treacherous, and the other eternally loyal. 

When the blue blooded guards arrive at the special project wing, Meenah is waiting at the entrance with the Summoner. Meenah knows that she cannot kill the Summoner himself, and execution by the Imperial Guard could cause another uprising. 

She has him placed in the dungeons, in a cell heavily fortified to keep even the rowdiest of high bloods. 

Next comes an inquest to the Grand Highbloods themselves. She insists to them that the Summoner is guilty of “HiGh MoThErFuCkInG tReAsOn”, though considering no troll really understands the regulations of the grand theocracy of highbloods, Meenah supposes every troll might as well be guilty of the same. 

Meenah never hears from the Summoner again, save for a memo from a royal representative informing her that the Grand Highblood himself had decreed the Summoner a “DeLiCiOuS pEaNuT bUtTeR mOtHeRfUcKeR”.

Development continues on the construction of the royal fleet, until three sweeps later, when the construction of the first wave of ships is complete. Each ship is outfitted with its own Ψiioniic power supply, and is capable of exceeding the speed of light. 

On the day of the Great Exodus, a planet’s worth of trolls gather at their designated home ships, located at every major population center. In one fell swoop, Meenah exiles every adult member of her species to the stars. The move would spread her empire to the stars, bringing the entire galaxy and eventually the universe under her grasp. With her species so spread out, there could be no question of rebellion, especially not on the home planet. At the age of 11 sweeps, every troll would be jettisoned out from the planet and set on their way to join the great galactic troll empire. 

As Meenah’s ship accelerates out of her planet’s atmosphere, she can feel the psychic link she holds with her lusus weaken. Though she suspects she will never be completely free of the hold her lusus has used to invade every waking moment of her life, she rests a little easier in the solace of a night spent with even a little less psychic pain.


	10. The Power Grab

The Empress stands on the deck of her Imperial Cruiser, overlooking the brunt of her fleet. Though her might and cunning has allowed for domination from one edge of the galaxy to the other, she knows her rule is still limited, limited by the powers which have directed her every move in this elaborate game. 

The psychic tether with her lusus has been weakening since she first left the planet’s atmosphere, but she can still feel the indignant psychic shrieks in the corner of her mind. Even worse is the sense of the interloper, a fellow fuchsia blooded troll, herself connected to Gl’bgolyb. Every day Meenah feels the interloper’s hold strengthen. The link between Meenah and her lusus has never been this weak, but Meenah is sure it will hold, it always does. 

She doesn’t know what the next step is, the Handmaid hasn’t seen fit to visit her in countless sweeps, and now that Meenah’s rule is secured, Meenah isn’t sure there is another step. As she turns away from the window of the deck, she feels ripples in the air of the room, ripples that could only have one source.

An instant later, a flash of familiar energy blinds Meenah, until the Handmaid once again stands before her. This is the oldest that Meenah has ever seen her, she is a troll as old as time itself, maybe older. Her horns have grown to an unwieldy size, and though her appearance is immaculate and controlled as always, Meenah can see a glint in the Handmaid’s eyes that betrays her ancient nature. 

This time, the Handmaid doesn’t even wait for Meenah’s reaction before subduing her. A moment layer, Meenah is motionless on the floor of the deck, frozen by the Handmaid’s immense power. A typhoon of black emotions overtakes Meenah. She feels a hate she hasn’t felt since she was still small. She doesn’t care if the Handmaid is an unfeeling monster, or if there can be no reciprocation. It has been so long since she hated another troll, and she has never hated anyone else like this. Her hate consumes her, and Meenah can think of nothing other than overwhelming the Handmaid and biting her mercilessly. 

But the hate between them is not meant to be. The Handmaid floats slowly towards Meenah until she is standing directly above her. The Handmaid extends her glowing wand and jabs it at Meenah’s temple, as if to admit some sort of frustration of her own. 

A wave of psychic energy overtakes Meenah’s conscious mind. She hears the screams of her people and feels the crunch of meteors as they smash against her home planet’s surface. She sees her lusus, drifting in the oceans of her planet. She hears a vile glub, the death kneel of her lusus. She feels the lifeforce of every troll snuffed out, one by one.

As the Handmaid retracts her wand, the painful psychic visions leave Meenah. Unlike every time before, however, the Handmaid stays with Meenah, drifting motionless above her. But Meenah does not have time to wonder what’s different this time, or to discern the unfathomable mysteries of the Handmaid. She has a species to save. 

She orders an intel report from the closest cruiser to the homeworld, and minutes later her fears are confirmed. Meteors have been appearing around the planet, seemingly from nowhere. Major cities have already been damaged, but hope still remains. She orders every ship back to the homeworld, in the hopes of rescuing the Mother Grub, of preventing her species’ complete extinction. 

She runs for the bottom decks, pushing maintenance trolls aside. As she reaches the engine room, she begins to see the blue and red flashes of her Helmsman. She grabs a nearby console and orders a full stop and reverse, towards the homeworld. She glances over to the Helmsman, whose gaping mouth remains frozen open. She feels the Flagship slow down, the bulwarks groaning in protest. The Flagship has never traveled this fast, or slowed down this quickly. 

A glance at the Helmsman confirms her fears. His fragile body is straining is accommodate the psychic stresses that the ship is demanding of him. His eyes begin to drip tears of mustard blood, streaming down his face. Meenah grimaces. The engine has taken wear and tear before, but she hates the necessary maintenance. She reluctantly steps toward the purple tendrils that hold the Helmsman in place and extend her hands to wrap them around his head. She hears a squelching noise as her hands and arms are pressed against the fresh blood that has begun to stream from the Helsman’s ears and moth. 

As she directs her power, she feels her immense reservoir of lifeforce drained a significant amount, and she feels the mind of the Helmsman fighting back. This is a mind that does not want to live another moment of the torture that Meenah has visited upon him. She has prolonged his life far beyond the natural limit for a mustard-blood, and every part of him hates her for it. 

Even worse is the feeling of despair she gets every time she interfaces with him in this way. She feels perfect hopelessness, a sense of doom that refuses to be placated or bargained with. In every moment of the transfer, she knows with every fiber of her being that everything will eventually end, that this whole universe will end, totally and absolutely.   
It is a feeling of powerlessness rivaled only by the powerlessness visited upon her by the Demoness herself. 

As Meenah retracts her hand, the visions courtesy of the Helmsman fade. She feels the ship slow to a complete stop, and her mind is filled with a sense of complete peace. 

It takes only a second for her to realize that something is dead wrong. She has never felt peace like this; for once her mind is her own. She knows exactly what has happened. In the time it took to slow the ship to a stop, the Imperial Flagship traveled just far enough to sever the psychic link between Meenah and Gl’bgolyb. 

As the ship begins to travel back towards the homeland Meenah begins to panic. The link between her and her lusus is not returning, she has no idea what’s going on, and any control, however minimal, that she may have exerted over her lusus is gone. She is completely blind. 

Hours later, nothing has changed significantly. Intel from the fleet continues to stream in, notifying her of the increasing severity of the meteor strikes. The Helmsman and Flagship continue to groan in protest as the Flagship accelerates towards the homeworld. 

Suddenly, in a moment no different from any other, everything goes to hell. Meenah feels a stab of burning psychic pain, and the red and brownbloods around her drop to the ground, blood streaming from every orifice. In their death kneel, they grab their ears and claw at their faces, but Meenah knows that nothing can stop this. 

She orders the ship to accelerate even faster, but a part of her knows that it won’t matter. A second wave of psychic energy overcomes her, a glub so loud that for a moment every sense of identity of erased, replaced with that singular noise. 

When she comes to, she is lying in a pool of blood, her own fuchsia mixed with the colors of every troll around her, a gruesome rainbow. She looks up at the Helmsman, whose thrashing has knocked loose the purple tendrils around her. Somehow he has remained alive, his suffering prolonged by the Empress’ gift of life. After a final fit, the Helmsman remains still, glaring directly at the Empress. His expression unfreezes, and his mouth closes. 

Meenah stands up and returns his glare. The Helmsman opens his mouth, but no speech comes out, only a unearthly shriek, more horrid than anything the Empress has ever heard. The trickle of blood around his ears, mouth, and nose becomes a fountain, and the shrieking overwhelms Meenah, forcing her to put her hands around her own ears. In his final moments, the lights from the Helmsman’s eyes intensify and solidify. The now deadly beams flash across the room to Meenah, striking her and slamming her into the wall behind her. It takes every ounce of willpower she has not to pass out on the spot, and she knows that a lesser troll would be dead. Another expenditure of her reservoir of life restores her to health, but it doesn’t remove the emotional pain and horror that has overwhelmed her.   
She stands up yet again, and makes her way back to the deck of the Flagship. She can feel that the ship has stopped accelerating, and is now speeding at a sub-light speed towards the troll homeworld. Meenah knows that without her psychic engine, it could be several lifetimes before she makes it back, and she wonders what exactly there is to return to.

“im completely alone now arent i”

“completely fuckin alone wit) ( not) (in left to rule”

As she arrives at the front deck, she sees the glow of the Handmaid, who has not moved despite the chaos that has wracked the ship in the past few hours. 

“and w) (at t) (e ) (----ELL DO YOU WANT”

Meenah draws her 2x3dent, and stares down the Handmaid, who continues to refuse to even acknowledge her. 

“youre glubbin dealin wit) ( a troll w) (o ) (as nofin left to loose”

“you know t) (is damn well dont you”

“my entire race is dead”

“my rule is ended”

“you are t) (e only t) (ing left in my life and i ) (ate you more t) (an i can express”

“i dare you to give me a reason not to kill you rig) (t glubbin now”

The Handmaid maintains eye contact with the Empress and flashes an uncharacteristic smile, the first expression of emotion that Meenah has ever seen from the Handmaid. 

The Handmaid opens her mouth, and begins to speak, her voice tempered with elegance and the wisdom of a troll that has lived for longer than the universe she inhabits.

“0n the c0ntrary y0ur highness…”

“i w0uld l0ve it if y0u c0uld kill me”

“in fact im c0unting 0n it”

“because after living f0r l0nger than y0u can imagine”

“in the service 0f a dem0n m0re h0rrid than y0u can fath0m”

“the 0nly payment i w0uld be satisfied with”  
“is death”

“0_0”

It takes Meenah a moment to process the Handmaid’s voice and to understand what she is saying. She speaks up, incredulous that this monster that has tormented her her whole life has just given up.

“so w) (at youre givin up t) (en”

“youll just roll over and finally let me kill you”

Now the Handmaid’s face is animated. No longer stoic, she’s free to express the emotions she has kept in check since the beginning of time. She laughs.

“0h certainly n0t”

She raises her wand and sends a bolt of green energy towards Meenah, which Meenah deftly dodges. Subsequent blasts scorch the floor to Meenah’s left and right, but she isn’t staying still. With every leap to avoid the explosion, Meenah closes the distance between her and the Handmaid. A final leap brings her within striking distance. She extends her 2x3dent to plunge it into the torso of the Handmaid. 

But the weapon doesn’t connect, and Meenah finds herself frozen mid-air, unable to move a muscle. The Handmaid floats lazily out of the way, and with a snap of her fingers, sends Meenah crashing to the ground. Meenah is briefly stunned from the impact, but recovers and stands up, pointed teeth gritted. As she is standing up, the Handmaid sends another bolt of green energy, and this time Meenah isn’t fast enough to dodge.

Unlike every other bolt, however, this one isn’t meant to immobilize or transmit visions.

This one is meant to hurt.

The pain wracks both Meenah’s body and mind, consuming her utterly. After a few seconds, Meenah has already forgotten everything before the pain.

What seems like an eternity later, the pain stops and the Handmaid drops her wands.

“that my dear was f0r being s0 imp0ssible all th0se years”

“n0w we can fight”

The Handmaid brings her fists to bear and ceases to float, drifting gently to the ground. 

If anything, the display of bravado energizes Meenah, and she rushes forward, ready to strike out and the Handmaid. But the Handmaid is even faster on ground than she was in the air, and deftly dodges the 2x3dent by turning to the side. The opening created by the attack gives the Handmaid enough time to let loose a solid punch to Meenah’s cheek, dazing her slightly. 

Meenah leaps backwards and circles around, waiting for the Handmaid to make the next move. A leap transitions into a right hook that fails to connect. As the Handmaid overextends, Meenah jabs with her 2x3dent at the Handmaid’s neck, but she misses as well. 

The fight evolves into a dance, with each partner pushing forward and retreating, neither gaining ground. It is the dance of two trolls who have freely admitted their hate of one another. 

Eventually, however, the Handmaid makes a mistake. Though their individual powers have kept the two trolls now locked in combat young and quick, Meenah has the advantage of more martial training. Meenah takes the opportunity to strike at the Handmaid’s kneecaps, dropping her to the ground and sending a spurt of dark red blood across the deck. Unable to stand, the Handmaid drops to her knees. 

Meenah stares down at her prey, and doesn’t know what to feel. She stands over the last remaining live troll in the universe, one of the only trolls who had ever given a real challenge. Though she has hated this rustblood for as long as she has known her, she cannot bring herself to consummate the hate.

The Handmaid speaks up.

“d0 it”

“d0 it c0ward”

But Meenah cannot do it, she cannot kill the Handmaid.

She begins to speak, but can’t make the words come out. 

The Handmaid speaks up again.

“i d0nt care what y0u feel”

“i d0nt care what y0u want”

“y0u are g0ing t0 kill me”

“because i want t0 die”

“i need t0 die”

Meenah holds back the tears and looks away, simultaneously plunging her 2x3dent into the Handmaid’s head, killing her. 

As the Handmaid goes limp, the glowing energy that was once surrounding her flows up the 2x3dent and into Meenah, consuming her. Meenah is at once herself and not herself. In an instant, she is filled with directives and orders and the compulsion to fulfill them.

But in a corner of her mind, a corner where she is still herself, she has enough remaining willpower and attitude to think but one thought:

“well t) (is is a load of glubbin ) (oofbeast excrement”

**Author's Note:**

> I assumed that the Troll Empress was also named Meenah, the same name her alternate universe self holds.


End file.
